WASHINGTON — The federal government is fighting with itself over a massive fire at a Chevron refinery in California that sent 15,000 people to hospitals with respiratory ailments.
In one corner is the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which conducted 119 interviews in an effort to find out what caused last year’s accident and how to prevent it from happening again. In the other is the Environmental Protection Agency, which is conducting a criminal investigation and wants the interviews to help it determine who’s responsible.
The 7-month-old document dispute has become so contentious that the safety board, headed by Rafael Moure-Eraso, went to court in an effort to quash grand jury subpoenas that federal prosecutors issued on behalf of the EPA, according to correspondence obtained by The Associated Press. Efforts to reach a compromise have failed so far.
The chemical board, which does not conduct criminal investigations, relies on cooperation from industry workers to carry out its mission of pinpointing the causes of accidents and recommending ways to avoid them. In contrast, the EPA has a division with 200 agents whose job it is to prosecute criminal conduct that threatens people’s health and the environment.
“(The board) has been working diligently with the Department of Justice to seek alternatives to release of the Chevron accident witness statements,” Moure-Eraso said in a statement.
